The git repo for the FEG is in Fedora Hosted. I believe Nigel Jones turned it over to David Nalley. I'm checking to see if David can grant access for people to help with the guide. If so, it simply needs to be converted to the newer Publican standards, and we can publish it in a proper place on docs.fp.o. For now I put it up on my space and I'll fix the link appropriately. --pfrields 20:02, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Contents

Job Descriptions

Some job descriptions for election coordination with notes from John Rose:
Fedora Election Coordination Descriptions

Are you a Fedora community member or even a free software user who'd like to get more involved but aren't sure where to start?

The Fedora Project is gearing up for our bi-annual elections process, for an election period in late November. During this election, we'll be voting on positions in the following groups:

Fedora Board

Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo)

Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee (FAmSCo)

Helping out with this elections process is a great opportunity to get started as a free software contributor, especially if you're unable or prefer not to write code.

We have a handful positions we need help with. We've outlined them below. If any of these sound like things you'd like to help us with, please let us know in the blog comments!

Fedora Election Questionnaire Coordinator

The Fedora Election Questionnaire Coordinator will make sure members of the Fedora Community are able to ask questions of the candidates, and will facilitate sending the questions to the candidates and compiling them into a wiki page that will be distributing during the election period.

Specifically, here's what you'll need to do as questionnaire coordinator:

Send an message out to the Fedora community to collect questions for the candidates, allowing community members to email their questions to you directly or optionally adding them to a wiki page. The message should be sent to the following:

On November 1, send the questionnaire page to all candidates and ask them to send their answers to you by November 8.

For any candidates you haven't heard from on November 7th, send them a reminder email.

Copy the candidates' answers into the wiki page and advertise the answers to the same venues listed above (the mailing lists and Planet Fedora.

Helpful Tips:

Consider using your best judgement and selecting 6-8 good questions from the pool for the candidates. 20 questions is probably too much. If some are similar, feel free to merge and restate them.

That's it. Not too tough, to ask. right?

Fedora Election Town Hall Coordinator

The Fedora Election Town Hall Coordinator will schedule IRC town hall sessions, one for each of the following groups:

Fedora Board

Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo)

Fedora Ambassadors' Steering Committee (FAmSCo)

Specifically, here's what you'll need to do as town hall coordinator:

Email all of the Fedora Board candidates between Nov. 1 and Nov. 3 and ask them to provide some 1-hour blocks of time they might be available to participate in an IRC town hall session, between November 13 and November 19th. You may wish to use a tool like whenasgood.net to organize this. Ask them to respond by Nov. 10.

Do the same as above for the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) candidates.

Do the same as above for the Fedora Ambassadors' Steering Committee (FAmSCo) candidates.

Select who the Town Hall moderators were be (see below for that job description).

On November 10, determine the best date and time for each of the three town halls, and advertise this time & date and the irc channel (probably #fedora-meeting and #fedora-meeting-questions on irc.freenode.net) in the following venues:

Planet Fedora (http://planet.fedoraproject.org) - if your blog is not on Planet Fedora, contact Máirín Duffy <duffy@fedoraproject.org> to post your message to the Planet for you.

Helpful tips:

Consider using whenisgood.net to try and round up a good time for all candidates.

When selecting people for town hall coordinators - remember that things like good IRC skills, even-temperedness, knowledge in the area of the town hall they are moderating, are very helpful.

That's it. Not too tough, right?

Fedora Election Town Hall Moderator (3)

The Fedora Election Town Hall Moderators will each run a 1-hour long IRC town hall sessions, one for each of the 3 groups being elected. This task requires some skill with IRC. This is an especially good position for someone who does not have a lot of time to devote as it only takes a little over an hour to do.

The date and time of each of these sessions will be published by the Fedora Election Town Hall Coordinator on November 10.

Specifically, here's what you'll need to do as town hall moderator:

Show up at least 5 minutes early to the town hall, make sure the IRC channel exists.

During the town hall, allow only candidates to have voice in #fedora-meeting.

During the town hall, take questions from Fedora Community members in #fedora-meeting-questions, and maintain a question queue. Ask the questions in order in #fedora-meeting, giving each candidate a chance to provide an answer to the question.

Once the session is over, end the meeting with the meeting bot command '#endmeeting'

At the end of the meeting, the meeting bot will spit out a bunch of links to the minutes. Take these links and post them to the following venues as soon as possible:

Planet Fedora (http://planet.fedoraproject.org) - if your blog is not on Planet Fedora, contact Máirín Duffy <duffy@fedoraproject.org> to post your message to the Planet for you.

Helpful tips:

Have great IRC and meetbot skills. This will help you out a lot!

Don't be afraid to poke people in the public channel for questions if things get slow. And bring a question or two of your own, just in case things get *really* slow!

Keep an eye on the clock and the question queue.

Town halls are held in #fedora-townhall and #fedora-townhall public

That's it!

Feedback from John Rose

<mizmo> inode0, sure no prob
<mizmo> that would be great
<inode0> or if you have a few minutes now I can spill some thoughts here too
<mizmo> sure! i do
<inode0> for the questionnaire coordinator I encourage them to use some judgment and select roughly 6-8 good questions for the candidates
<inode0> if we get 20 questions that is really too much to ask I think
<inode0> if some are similar feel free to merge and restate them even
<inode0> for the town hall coordinator, I do in private warn them that if they don't use something like whenisgood they will get yelled at and if they do they will get yelled at - so don't be shocked to get some negative reaction to that
<inode0> I wouldn't put that in what you are writing, but I would warn the volunteer it might happen
<inode0> both happened to me :)
<mizmo> okay cool
<inode0> usually I worked with someone on FESCo, FAmNA, and the Board to arrange for them to announce things to their communities although having the coordinator do it probably would work too
<inode0> the town hall coordinator was also tasked with selecting moderators for the events
<inode0> I generally didn't advertise that too widely, I had people I knew had good IRC skills and just asked them if they would help out

<mizmo> we could make 'good IRC skills' a requirement for those
<inode0> I have a feeling that if we had that open it is one spot where we would get more interest than opportunity and I'm not sure it would be a good fit for a random new contributor
<inode0> lots of new ambassadors for example always volunteered without being asked when they overheard talk about it
<mizmo> what are the essential skills someone would need - technically, how irc works basically, interacting with the meetbot, understanding voice
<mizmo> ah okay
<inode0> we didn't use meetbot mostly because most town halls predate it
<mizmo> so you think maybe it should just be in the coordinator's role to pick them
<mizmo> with some ideas on what skills they should look for?
<inode0> but we can now, they only need to know 3 commands so that is simple
<inode0> just saying that is how it has been done
<inode0> matt rounded them up, then I rounded them up
<mizmo> kk

<inode0> I tried to pick people who (a) had good IRC skills, (b) were even tempered, (c) had knowledge in the area of the town hall they would be doing
<inode0> having a moderator who understands technically what is being discussed, especially for the FESCo town hall, is nice
<inode0> we could try an open call - but have the town hall coordinator choose from those offering to help

<inode0> this part isn't ever a problem because spevack and stickster and quaid and others will always help here
<inode0> but it is nice to get volunteers from the rank and file too
<inode0> we have backups though so there won't be a crisis for moderators
<inode0> the town halls are held in #fedora-townhall and #fedora-townhall-public
<inode0> usually since the moderators were not IRC gurus I would give voice to the candidates before the meetings and remove it after they were done, and for the moderators too
<inode0> so they didn't need to be bothered with that
<inode0> they often won't know everyone's nicks and people will occasionally show up with unexpected nicks

<inode0> community members especially the first time moderating are nervous - so I just tried to help them focus on the question and answer part
<mizmo> so maybe we want to advertise the coordinator as someone who knows people and isn't completely new
<inode0> that will help for sure
<inode0> they don't need much in the way of particular skill with anything, someone can show them what they need to know fairly quickly
<inode0> and maybe we can document those skills this time while we do that
<inode0> we've let moderators run the meetings as they choose and we've learned some things as a result

<inode0> having each candidate answer in some order is a very bad idea
<mizmo> if someone is asleep at the wheel....
<mizmo> hehe
<inode0> asking a question, then leaving the floor open for answers whenever candidates are ready works much better
<inode0> far less dead air
<inode0> so I'd at least suggest that format
<inode0> moderators should not let one topic run too long but a time limit doesn't work well either
<inode0> make a judgment call and cut things off if it is just going on too long
<inode0> some questions will take longer than others, so be flexible
<inode0> keep an eye on the clock and the question queue
<inode0> when short on questions prod the community a bit in the other channel
<inode0> it is good to bring a couple of your own questions as well
<inode0> one to kick off the event is good while collecting community questions
<inode0> one in your pocket in case there is a dead spot is good to have too
<inode0> this is the sort of stuff I generally talk about with each moderator before their town hall
<mizmo> this is really good stuff

<inode0> and I was always around to help, they could pm me about any difficulties

<inode0> being stranded and stuck is a bad place to put someone who might be nervous and who is helping

<mizmo> are you going to be able to help this time?
<inode0> so the town hall coordinator or someone should be on standby to help the moderator if needed
<mizmo> okay it'll be the town h all coordinator's job
<inode0> I can help in the background